Promontory Apartments
- Architect
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,Holsman
- Year
- 1946
- Style
- International Style
- City
- Chicago, IL
- Collection
- mies in chicago
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The Promontory Apartments is a 22-story cooperative apartment tower at 5530-5532 South Shore Drive in Hyde Park, overlooking Burnham Park - the first skyscraper Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ever designed, and the first of his buildings to expose its structural skeleton. Developer Herbert Greenwald conceived it in 1946 as Hyde Park's first new high-rise since the Great Depression, after Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Eero Saarinen all turned the commission down.
the building
The architects who said no. Greenwald wanted a big name attached to his project. Frank Lloyd Wright offered to design it for a $50,000 advance Greenwald couldn't afford; Le Corbusier refused to design anything in the United States; and Eero Saarinen turned the commission down too, before it landed with Mies.
An exposed frame, for the first time. The Promontory Apartments was Mies van der Rohe's first skyscraper and the first of his buildings to feature an exposed structural skeleton, a concept he would go on to develop across his American career.
the style
Promontory Apartments is an International Style building, notable as the first project where Mies van der Rohe worked out the exposed-frame approach that became his signature, here rendered in a concrete frame rather than the steel he would later favor.
More on International Stylethe architect
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, working with local firm Holsman, designed Promontory Apartments as his first skyscraper commission - a pivotal early work in the high-rise vocabulary he would refine across Chicago for decades after.
significance
Promontory Apartments is a Chicago Landmark (L-363) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, designated a Chicago landmark on November 20, 2019, recognized as the first skyscraper by one of modernism's foundational architects.
nearby
- Jackson Shore Apartments
- Shoreland Hotel
- Museum of Science and Industry
- Woman's Building
- University Apartments
- Frank R. Lillie House